Bedlam: The Further Secret Adventures of Charlotte Brontë

by Laura Joh Rowland

  He already knew; I could tell. That gave credence to Slade’s story and justified my tendency to believe Slade had been telling the truth. “She said Stieber is a spy for the Tsar of Russia.”

  “Indeed,” Lord Eastbourne said, as if impressed and interested. “Did she also say what her relationship was with Stieber?”

  “She worked for him as an informant.” Although I distrusted Lord Eastbourne more than ever, and I didn’t like to release the information, my hope of freedom hinged on him. I could not evade his questions and risk offending him. “She consorted with Russian immigrants. She learned about plots against the Tsar and reported them to Stieber.”

  Skepticism crossed Lord Eastbourne’s face. “Then why did he torture her?”

  “She said she had crossed him.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, compelled by my instinct to conceal the details and protect Slade. If Lord Eastbourne learned that Katerina had named Slade as a party involved in her death, it might convince him that Slade was alive, even though my sightings of Slade had not. Lord Eastbourne already thought Slade was a traitor; he surely wouldn’t hesitate to deem him a murderer as well. I imagined Lord Eastbourne launching a manhunt for Slade, and myself forced to participate. I didn’t want Slade persecuted for yet another crime—at least not until I discovered whether he was guilty. “Katerina was dying, she was growing incoherent, babbling in Russian.” I decided to test Slade’s story. “But she did say that Stieber was looking for someone. A scientist named Kavanagh. She said he’d invented a device that the Tsar wants.”

  Lord Eastbourne listened without visible emotion, but I sensed excitement rising in him. “What kind of device?”

  “A new kind of gun. She indicated that the Tsar wants to use it against England.” Here I blended Katerina’s statement with Slade’s. “Stieber thought she knew where to find the scientist. That’s the other reason he tortured Katerina.”

  “Well.” Lord Eastbourne pondered, then said in an offhand manner, “Anything that has to do with Russia is of interest to the Foreign Office. Did Katerina tell you Niall Kavanagh’s whereabouts?”

  My heart beat faster. I hadn’t mentioned Kavanagh’s Christian name. Lord Eastbourne knew it, and he’d let the fact slip.

  “No,” I said. “She died.”

  Kavanagh existed, and so, presumably, did his invention. What Slade had said was true—but perhaps only in part. I didn’t yet know which side Slade was on—England’s or Russia’s—or whether he was guilty of murder. Perhaps he’d mixed truth with lies. Still, I was glad I hadn’t spilled everything to Lord Eastbourne. He’d deceived me by concealing the fact that he knew about Wilhelm Stieber, Niall Kavanagh, and the secret invention. Maybe he’d done so to protect state secrets, but maybe he had other, baser motives. If my experiences during the summer of 1848 had taught me anything, it was that men in positions of authority weren’t always honorable.

  Another thought occurred to me. Slade had told me that the British government had Kavanagh hidden, but Lord Eastbourne had asked where Niall Kavanagh was. Did that mean the government didn’t know? If Stieber didn’t have him, then who did?

  “Have you had any further contact with the man you thought was John Slade?” Lord Eastbourne asked.

  I experienced a cold, sick sensation of dismay, for I could tell that Lord Eastbourne had revised his opinion concerning Slade: he was no longer certain Slade was dead. I had tried so hard to convince him that Slade was alive that I had gone too far toward succeeding. Probably he would send more agents to hunt down Slade, execute him, and make sure he was really dead this time. And I could not forsake my loyalty to Slade, even though he’d treated me badly.

  “No,” I said, “I haven’t.”

  Although I trembled with nerves, I looked Lord Eastbourne straight in the eye. I watched him try to discern whether I was lying. I saw that he was undecided, but I could tell he knew I’d withheld information.

  “I must go now, Miss Brontë,” he said.

  Panic struck. “Please don’t leave me here!” I thrust my hand through the bars of the cage to prevent him from going.

  Lord Eastbourne patted my fingers, barely touching them, and smiled. “Don’t worry. I’ll pull some strings and have you free in no time.”

  “Are you ready to be good?” the warder asked me.

  Eager to avoid another stint in the dark cell, I said I was. He took me to the dayroom where I’d had my altercation with Poll. The women pretended I wasn’t there, except for Maisie. She sidled up to me during dinner, which was greasy mutton stew.

  “When Poll gets out of the dark cell, she’ll have your hide,” she whispered.

  I prayed that I would be gone before then. In the evening, the warders marched us to our cells. These measured some thirteen feet by seven; each had iron bars and an iron gate across the front, a barred window, and a stone floor. Amenities consisted of a table and some stools, a copper basin with a water tap, shelves of bedding, and a water closet. A gas lamp with a tin shade burned dimly on the wall. My cellmates were three streetwalkers, two drunks who reeked of liquor, and two pickpockets. Our beds were mats that we spread on the floor. I wanted to lie down and drift into the blessed oblivion of sleep, but sleep proved to be impossible.

  The other prisoners regaled one another with stories about the crimes for which they’d been arrested, the men who’d done them wrong, and their hard lives. The galleries rang with chatter and laughter. Even after the lights went out, the noise continued. My cellmates said to me, “It’s your turn. Tell us a story!”

  Fearing what they would do to me if I refused, I began to recite an abridged version of Jane Eyre. None of them had heard of the book, let alone read it. They loved the tale of Jane’s suffering at the hands of the Reed family, her imprisonment in the Red Room, and her experiences at the dreadful Lowood School. They hung on every word. Women in nearby cells quieted down to listen. Those farther away shouted for me to speak up.

  Everyone wept when Jane’s friend, Helen Burns, died.

  I remembered my childhood, when the pupils at the Clergy Daughters’ School had thought me the best storyteller among them. Now my audience of criminals wouldn’t let me stop, even though my voice grew hoarse. I told my tale until what must have been midnight, when a warder appeared outside my cell and unlocked its gate. Two men were with her, dressed in white coats, their faces in shadow.

  “Charlotte Brontë, get up,” she said. “You’re leaving.”

  An outcry arose from the prisoners: “She can’t leave! We want to know what happens to Jane Eyre!”

  Gladness filled me as I sprang up from my mat. I didn’t know that I was bound for somewhere much worse than Newgate Prison.

  15

  THE SECRET ADVENTURES OF JOHN SLADE

  Easter 1849. After midnight mass, a huge crowd filled Red Square, a vast open expanse within the walls that enclosed the Kremlin. Domes glittered in the damp, fecund spring air. St. Basil’s Cathedral loomed above the crowd, as brightly colored and patterned as Christmas candy. Everyone carried candles. Thousands of faces lit by the flames glowed like medieval icons. The doors of all the churches in the Kremlin opened. Light from within flooded the square. Out marched parades of priests wearing golden vestments and swinging censers, followed by congregations bearing banners and lit tapers. Singing from choirs rose to heaven.

  John Slade stood among the crowd. He saw a familiar figure—the Third Section agent who’d been watching him for four months. The agent was a common Russian type, a slim man with a pale, melancholy face and a dark mustache. Slade noticed something different about his shadow tonight. The man hovered closer than usual. For the first time he met Slade’s gaze. Slade sensed that the opportunity he’d been waiting for was at hand. He moved slowly out of the crowd, allowing his shadow to keep up with him. When he reached the bank of the river, he stopped. It was dark beneath the trees, and quiet. The lights in Red Square shimmered in the distance. Slade didn’t have long to
wait. His shadow joined him and said, “Happy Easter, Mr. Ivan Zubov.”

  “The same to you, Mr. Andrei Plekhanov. And to your colleagues in the Third Section.”

  The man’s dark eyes widened. “How do you know who I am?”

  Slade had done a little spying on his spy. He had followed Plekhanov to his lodgings and obtained the information from another tenant. Plekhanov hadn’t noticed that Slade had turned the tables on him. Now Slade said, “I borrowed a leaf from your book.”

  Plekhanov smiled tensely. “You’re an unusual dissident, Mr. Zubov. Your friends—Peter, Alexander, and Fyodor—would never have spotted me, let alone managed to discover my name. But they are too preoccupied with plotting against the government, aren’t they?”

  Slade knew he was supposed to be upset by the news that the Third Section knew who and what his friends were. He arranged his features into the proper expression of alarm and fright. Plekhanov’s smile relaxed.

  “So you see, we know what you are up to,” Plekhanov said.

  “I’m not up to anything,” Slade said, deliberately speaking with a tremor in his voice, avoiding the other man’s gaze, and signaling a lie. “I’m not a dissident.”

  “Oh? What about the articles you write for the radical journals?”

  “I write for anybody who will pay me. I’m just a poor author trying to make a living.”

  Plekhanov laughed. “You are poor, that’s true enough. Your landlord says you’re behind on your rent. You also owe money at all the shops and taverns in the neighborhood.” Slade had deliberately created his reputation as a debtor, and Plekhanov had swallowed the bait. “But never fear. I have a proposition to make you. Should you accept, it will solve your financial problems.”

  Slade combined hope with wariness in his expression. “What sort of proposition?”

  “You work for me as an informant. You report on your friends, and I pay you enough to cover your debts and put vodka in your cup.”

  “I can’t betray my friends,” Slade said, aghast.

  Plekhanov’s melancholy face turned cruel. “If you refuse my proposition, I will have you sent back to St. Petersburg. I happen to know you’re wanted by the police there.”

  Slade himself had spread the rumor that he’d committed petty crimes in St. Petersburg and he was a fugitive from the law. That story had led Plekhanov to believe he had power over Slade, just as Slade had intended. Slade let his shoulders sag in defeat. He nodded.

  “You’re a wise man.” Plekhanov clapped Slade on the back. “Now that we’ve settled our bargain—are your friends up to anything the Third Section would like to know about?”

  Slade thought of their conspiracy to assassinate its chief. They’d been spying on Prince Orlov, and their plans were almost set. Slade felt guilt descend upon him like the blade of a guillotine. Duty required him to deliver his friends to their enemies.

  “Yes,” he said with genuine reluctance, “there is.”

  16

  I WALKED OUT A FREE WOMAN, ALBEIT STILL DRESSED IN PRISON clothes. Incredulous and joyful, I offered my fervent thanks to the two white-coated men who had procured my release. They didn’t speak. Escorting me down the gallery, they looked straight ahead; they walked in step, as if in a military parade. Both were tall, both some thirty years old; but the man on my right had the strong musculature and carved features of a Greek athlete, while his comrade on my left was thin and lanky, with puffy lips and eyes that bespoke sensuality and dissipation.

  “Were you sent by Lord Eastbourne?” I asked.

  They didn’t even acknowledge that I’d spoken. But who except Lord Eastbourne could have sent them to get me out of prison? Neither of the men showed any interest in me, but I was too grateful to care about their behavior. Outside the prison, gaslights burned dimly up and down Newgate Street. It must have been two or three o’clock in the morning. Smoke drifted across the sky, which glowed orange over a foundry, like a false dawn. I didn’t see a soul. How was I to get home? I doubted I could find a carriage for hire, and I was afraid to walk. London teemed with cutthroats.

  To my relief, a carriage drawn by two horses emerged from the darkness between the lampposts. My escort who looked like a Greek athlete climbed onto the box with the driver. The other man opened the door for me.

  “Please take me to Number Seventy-Six Gloucester Terrace,” I said.

  Riding in the carriage, I looked forward to a good meal, a hot bath, and the company of friends. I peered out the window to see how close to home I was, and saw an unfamiliar street. I called to my escorts, “Excuse me—is this the way to Gloucester Terrace?” They didn’t answer. I had a distinct, uneasy feeling that they were taking me in the wrong direction on purpose. “I’ll get out here, if you don’t mind.”

  The carriage didn’t stop. I tried the door. It was locked from the outside. Fear washed through me in a cold wave. “Let me out!” Beating on the door, I called out the window, “Help!”

  There was no one to come to my aid. The window was too small for me to jump out. The carriage moved faster, racketing through the deserted streets, veering around corners. When it finally slowed, the sight of our destination filled me with horror. Bedlam loomed black against the fire-glow in the sky, like a haunt of demons. Gaslights burned at the portals. A guard opened the back gate.

  “No!” I cried as the carriage rolled in. It stopped; the door opened. My escorts reached in and seized me. I resisted, but they dragged me out.

  Two attendants brought a litter whose metal frame had leather straps attached to it and wheels on the bottom. My escorts flung me onto the litter. As I kicked and screamed, they held me down. The attendants buckled the straps across my body and wheeled me into the asylum. My escorts followed us through the dim wards.

  “Help me!” I called to the nurses we passed. “I’ve been kidnapped! Please get me out!”

  No one paid me any notice. Madwomen resisting incarceration must be a common sight in Bedlam. The attendants carried me up the stairs. I knew where we were going before I saw the heavy iron door.

  “No!” I pleaded.

  We entered the criminal lunatics’ ward. As we moved down the corridor, I saw Julia Garrs peering at me from a window in a cell door. My captors wheeled me into the room that contained the table with the straps and the machine with the wires—the room where Slade had been tortured and the two nurses murdered.

  I strained against my bonds; I shrieked; I tossed my head. A man leaned over me. He was the doctor with the white coat, the spectacles, and the gray tonsure of hair. I struggled harder, shrieked louder. He regarded me with detachment, his eyes as cool as gray pebbles. I might have been an insect under a magnifying glass.

  “Lift her head,” the doctor ordered the attendants.

  They obeyed. He put a glass beaker to my mouth. I tried to turn my head away, but the attendants held it tightly. I clamped my lips shut, but the doctor pinched my nose. Unable to breathe, I had to open my mouth. He poured in bitter-tasting liquid, and although I spat and coughed, much of it ran down my throat. My captors gathered around me. They watched me closely as I continued to struggle, scream, and beg them to let me go. The drug burned inside my stomach, then seemed to spread outward in warm waves. I lost the strength to scream anymore. My limbs felt too heavy to move; my struggles ceased. The men’s faces wavered in my vision, and the gas lamps behind them grew large, blurred halos. An unnatural calm spread through my body even as my mind reeled with terror.

  “Don’t be afraid.” The doctor spoke in a soft monotone. “Just relax.”

  My will bent to his command. A sense of detachment came over me. My thoughts were clear, and my powers of observation intact, but I felt as if I were inside an invisible glass bell, sealed off from my emotions. My terror didn’t abate, but it existed apart from me. The thundering of my heart quieted.

  “Is she unconscious?” a voice said, outside my field of view. It was inflected by a foreign accent that I’d heard before, in Belgium. There I’d met s
ome Prussians who spoke German. The man had the same accent as theirs.

  “No,” the doctor said, “she’s quite alert.”

  “Good,” the Prussian said. “Will you use the galvanometer?”

  “That wouldn’t be advisable,” the doctor said. “She’s too small and delicate. The galvanometer could damage her brain before she can tell you what you want to know.”

  I remembered seeing Slade hooked up to the machine that delivered jolts of electricity to his brain. I value my own brain above all else that I possess, and I should have felt relief at escaping from harm to it, but at that moment I did not care. I should have been worried about what these people were going to do to me, but the glass bell kept my anxiety at bay.

  “We’ll use a technique called mesmerism.” The doctor placed flat, heavy metal plates on my chest and stomach.

  “What are those?” the Prussian asked.

  “Magnets. According to the great Dr. Mesmer, they enhance the flow of the magnetic fluids within the body and render the mind susceptible to manipulation.”

  Their cold weight crushed my breasts and my ribs. The drug didn’t take away the pain, but rendered me as impervious to it as to fear. The doctor bent over me and said, “You will not move or speak unless I tell you to. You are under my power.”

  A spark of rebellion flared in me, for I detest being told what to do, but it quickly faded, as if the glass bell that enclosed me lacked enough air to sustain fire.

  “Can she speak?” the Prussian asked.

  The doctor said to me, “State your name.”

  “Charlotte Brontë.” The name issued from me against my will.

  He unbuckled the straps that bound me to the litter. Here was my chance to flee, but my body lay inert, uncooperative.

  “Raise your right arm, Miss Brontë,” the doctor ordered.

  My arm rose, of its own, eerie volition.

  “Drop it.”

  My arm hit the litter with a thud.